by Seema Anand
This is what colours our idea of the sexual experience and is extremely important. If the ‘before’ is good, the sex will be fabulous, if the ‘after’ is brilliant, it will lay the groundwork for next time—the ‘end’ is just the beginning of the next time.
As a man, how do you begin foreplay? Do you just jump into it—you have your partner with you, you know it’s going to end in sex so let’s just go at it? And how do you finish? Do you have an après-sex routine? Or do you feel that you’ve done lots beforehand, and now is your chance to roll over and go to sleep while your partner washes herself?
The Kama Sutra says that the success of the before and after depends on really good communication—what you talk about and the degree of attentiveness.
But what is good conversation? Is it a chat about politics or the latest film, the state of the economy or the latest fashion? Should one talk about war or about music? Is it true that to keep a man interested the woman must always be the listener; she must let the man talk about his interests and pretend to be enthusiastic about it? And then again what constitutes attentiveness—who determines what degree of attention is suitable? Also, emotions and energies differ vastly before and after sex—so how should the attention change?
It’s the Venus and Mars syndrome!
Even more importantly, is the same conversation ‘good’ before sex as well as after sex?
The Kama Sutra has the answer.
Vatsyayan translates the idea of good conversation into stories. Tell your lover stories.
Storytelling is one of the sixty-four essential skills of the Kama Sutra. Not only did it mark you at as a man of substance and breeding—it showed that you were well versed in literature and the arts—but it was also a brilliant tool of seduction because you would know exactly what to say to keep your beloved amused and interested.
And it instructs the man on exactly what kind of stories to narrate—what is arousing, what is exciting, what will help shed her inhibitions, what will overcome shyness and embarrassment, what will make your lover feel cherished.
Before and after stories were different because you were looking to create a different mood, to arouse different emotions.
Before foreplay is the time to create an atmosphere for sex—to amuse, excite, arouse, to get rid of any inhibitions and shyness, to get your lover panting for your first touch. After sex you need to create a mood of contentment and happiness.
The start of foreplay and post orgasm are very delicate moments, women are usually more nervous at this time and their emotions are more fragile, so the onus of getting the balance right is on the man. Vatsyayan says that the man must make conversation that will entertain the woman—with the emphasis on ‘entertaining’. This is not the time for the man to share his office woes or pontificate on his political views.
According to Vatsyayan, of all the different types of stories, the best kind were the gossipy ones, the ones that made you laugh out loud. Happy moods are ideal for lovemaking. They say happiness was Cleopatra’s seduction mantra because if a man associated you with his happiest moments, he would never want to leave you. To laugh together while making love, or waking up in the morning and laughing with your partner, made you an irresistible lover.
Malathi had not seen her lover in several days so that night she invited him to her bed. ‘My husband sleeps on my right so get into the bed from the left side and make love to me from behind. Come after midnight, he’ll be asleep by then.’ But just as the lover started the husband turned around in his sleep and caught the lover’s manhood by mistake. Thinking that he had caught a thief he started to shout for help—‘Malathi I have caught a thief. Go quickly and find a candle while I hold him.’ But Malathi told him that he should go get the candle and she would hold the thief. By the time he came back the lover had disappeared and Malathi was on the bed holding a leather strap which she said the dog had brought in. Happy that they were safe the husband went back to sleep.
The Kama Sutra says that after sex, the lovers should put some distance between themselves briefly. They should go to different bathrooms to wash. It advises against the couple bathing and washing together after sex—a brief separation is necessary because after orgasm there is a dispersal of energy that can cause a disconnect and can lead to emotional distance. This disconnect needs to be healed. So one should bathe and wash separately, and after bathing and getting into fresh clothes, the couple must come together one more time where the man must practice attentiveness and good conversation.
Taking her to the terrace (if it is too hot indoors), he must arrange a nice dinner of an assortment of dishes—the Kama Sutra says there should be kebabs, vegetables, breads, different types of sweets and chicken broth (this was particularly recommended as an energizing dish for tired courtesans, to recoup their strength after sex). He must offer her a drink and hold the cup to her lips with his own hands. After she has finished eating he will place her head on his lap and show her the different constellations and point out the stars and tell her stories.
Showing the constellations (another of the sixty-four skills which will be touched upon later in the book) was about making astrological predictions—the man telling his lover how the stars were aligned for them and all obstacles removed from the path of their love.
Vatsyayan tells us that the evening begins when you invite the woman to your home. To show her how much you have been looking forward to her company, decorate the house with flowers, perfume the rooms etc. Her first impression should be of how beautiful everything looks. As the evening progresses, the surroundings will fade into the background but the perfume will remain in her subconscious as a memory of the night.
Drinks should be offered but the book is very particular that it should be no more than a couple of drinks—enough to shed a few inhibitions but not enough to make her drunk. Being drunk never leads to good sex.
Do not serve dinner—just a few small snacks. Food was to be consumed afterwards. Eating and drinking heavily beforehand leads to unsatisfactory sex. The body uses a lot of energy to digest the food and it also needs a lot of energy to get the sexual juices working—it can only do one thing at a time.
Sit near her but not next to her. Move closer to her gradually during the evening. The touching should be kept to a bare minimum to begin with—just a couple of feather light kisses dropped casually, a quick flick to her hair, brief touches to the edge of her sari—talking to her all the time, ‘telling her your stories’, making her laugh, while getting little bit closer and more intimate and so on, till finally she is ready for the kissing to begin.
It has to be very carefully done because, says the Kama Sutra, a woman will love a man who does not push intimacy on her too soon, but she needs to be completely aware how desperately he wants to do so. If he takes the time to arouse her, to indulge her hesitations, ostensibly holding his own desires in check, he will have won her heart for always.
How you behave after sex is even more important than your behaviour before. Before sex we are all heading towards excitement, there is a build-up of adrenaline and hormones, we know there is going to be a reward waiting at the end of it, therefore many of us are happy to work a lot harder to make it happen. After sex, there is a tendency to roll over and go to sleep because ‘it’s all over anyway’. For the time being you have had what you wanted, one can deal with ‘next time’ when you get to next time.
However, the Kama Sutra says that the man who can understand the importance of après-sex stories is the lover of every woman’s dreams. This is the time to be even more communicative, to show even more attention and caring.
When the beautiful dancers arrived to entertain the party, the beloved burst into uncontrollable tears. If the king saw these young beauties eventually he would leave her for one of them. To show how much he loved her, the king passed a law—no one was allowed to introduce more beauties to him and anyone who did would be executed.
The book tells us that unlike with men, for women orgasm is
not a stand-alone experience. It’s what happens after orgasm that decides the quality of the orgasm. If the woman is cuddled and made to feel loved and wanted it becomes pleasurable for her, if she is ignored afterwards or left to herself it becomes an unsatisfactory experience.
In the mountains lived a girl so beautiful that everyone who saw her went mad with desire. Even the sage Narada lost his head over her. But he was so angry with his own reaction that he cursed the girl, ‘just as she makes us all feel crazy with desire she will also lose herself and commit adultery one day’. But when he calmed down and he realized he had been unfair he lessened the curse a little—‘she will not however be blamed for her adultery and her husband will not abandon her for it’. In keeping with the curse, one day when the girl was lying naked by the lake after her bath, a wandering demigod saw her and, struck by her beauty, disguised himself as her husband and had sex with her. Just then her husband came back unexpectedly and finding her in the mellow state of pleasure that comes after a fulfilling orgasm he knew right away that she had been unfaithful. He was furious. He pulled out his sword—she deserved to die! But before he could strike her the goddess herself came out of a rock and stopped him. She told him about the curse—it wasn’t the girl’s fault, it was destined. The husband’s doubts were set to rest and he hugged his wife and took her back home where they lived happily ever after.
My Advice
After sex is the time to make your lover feel loved. It’s the time to lay the foundation for the next sexual encounter. Being more attentive and loving after sex means you get more brownie points for the same amount of effort and will have your lover waiting impatiently for next time.
Another name for Kamadeva is Smara or Memory. Memories can be happy and pleasurable or full of anger and discontent, and this will impact all future lovemaking. It could bring your lover back to your bed in an excited frame of mind, wanting to be with you, it could chase them away altogether or (if they are stuck with you and have to come back to your bed) it could bring back a reluctant lover. The power of the subconscious mind is tremendous. Not only will it impact this relationship, it will also colour all other sexual relationships, so it is very important to get this right.
No relationship survives without effective communication and sex needs constant freshening up to stay exciting.
The Kama Sutra has hit the nail on the head when it says that great conversation is the ultimate tool of seduction. It recognized 2,000 years ago, in a society of culturally well versed men, at a time when men agreed that seduction was an art form, that communication between lovers is a fragile thing, difficult to understand at the best of times and not a skill that everyone has.
And so Vatsyayan developed a formula—stories—a manner of communication that would meet all the diverse demands of occasion and character.
Does that all sound like a lot of work?
They say a woman loves a man who will not try to bypass the seduction process, a man who will not hurry her into sex even though he really wants to, someone who will take the time to arouse and excite her even if his own desires are really intense—that is the man who will win her in the end.
*Most of the stories in this chapter have been adapted from the Sukasaptati, edited and translated by Pt Ramakanta Tripathi, published by Chaukhamba Sanskrit Pratishthan.
Paan and the Arts of Seduction
Paan is a wrap made with betel leaf and areca nut (not betel nut, as is the common misconception). It is a delicacy generally found in Eastern cultures, particularly in India. In modern times, it is a breath freshener to be eaten after a meal—but in the time of the Kama Sutra this little nut wrapped up in a leaf was so much more.
Paan, says the Kama Sutra, was the transition between foreplay and sex. It was the very last thing that was offered in the games of foreplay—when the beloved felt she was fully aroused; after she had been kissed, caressed, embraced, love-bitten to her heart’s content—she offered her lover paan. It meant she was ready for sex.
If, on the other hand, the beloved was an inexperienced and hesitant lover then the Kama Sutra advised that the man could offer the paan instead. He was to take a bite out of the betel leaf and offer the rest of it to her. This would be the first feel of his lips on hers. If she took the paan from him, it meant she was ready to accept his kisses.
Paan was the ultimate symbol of romance and passion in the history of seduction and there was an entire erotic vocabulary centred around the giving and taking of it—everything that you could dream of and more. Both men and women used paan to send messages—in the absence of text messages and emojis one used paan to communicate with one’s lover. If you wanted to begin flirting, there was a paan for it, if you wanted to romance a lover, there was a paan for it, if you wanted to seduce an ex back—there was a paan for it.
The nuance, the subtlety and the degree of seduction that this tiny little betel leaf could conjure up was as unbelievable as it was delightful—it was seductive without being graphic, delicate without being too subtle, fun without being loud and thoroughly suggestive without being explicit. It was a time when people understood that there was more to seduction than ‘swipe left, swipe right’!
Let us begin with the paans of invitation.
‘Desperately in love’—if you wanted to tell someone you were desperately in love with them you would send what the Kama Sutra calls the Kaushal paan. The Kaushal paan had to be made with quantifiable perfection. Each condiment in it had to be placed in its precise spot next to the other; nothing could be placed on top of anything else. The quantity of each ingredient had to be exact. Instead of the sweet paste, one had to use catechu (kathha). Finally, each fold had to be turned down with mathematical precision. This type of paan would be wrapped in four red threads and could only be carried to the lover by a wandering monk. Any lack in the paan would be seen as a lack in love and the lover would be spurned out of hand.
‘Setting up a date’—to ‘hook’ someone for a night of passion you sent an Ankush paan. This paan was shaped like an isosceles triangle with the top corner bent to resemble a hook.
‘I am feverish with excitement at the thought of seeing you’—a Kandarp paan was sent. This was shaped like an equilateral triangle and could only be delivered in the evenings after the moon had risen.
‘I want to sleep with you’—a rectangular paan (the shape of a single bed) was delivered by a very trusted servant. Many a heart has been broken because the person delivering it managed to seduce the lover for themselves!
And, of course, love messages are not one-sided. Lovers must respond as well.
‘Sorry I don’t have the time to see you’—Chaturstra, a square paan.
‘I don’t love you’—a paan without the supari (areca nut).
‘I love you’—a paan with cardamom.
‘I have absolutely no interest in you, don’t contact me again’—the paan had to be made inside out (with the dark side of the leaf on the inside) and then tied with black thread. A black thread at any time was a sign of rejection and would have been enough to strike fear into the heart of the lover. But added to that an inside-out paan—the lover might as well be dead!
‘I am ready to sleep with you’—two small triangular paans joined at the mouth and tied together with red thread.
‘I get excited telling you in public that I want to sleep with you’—the paan for this message is the same as the one above, but now imagine that you are in a crowded place—close enough to see each other but separated by the crowds. You would put one paan in your mouth, and taking the second one, you would touch your mouth to it and then make a gesture in the air as if offering it to your beloved. It was as intimate and arousing as a physical touch.
‘I am breaking up with you’—this one was positively brutal. You sent a paan that was torn in the middle and tied with black thread.
‘I am ready to spend my life with you’—a paan tied in red cloth.
‘To express overwhelming love’—this was a ste
p further than ‘desperate love’—you sent the aforementioned Kaushal paan but with even more precision. The paan had to be filled with supari that had been chopped into little bits and then stuck together again with sticky paste. Saffron was added to the centre and the outside was coated in sandalwood paste.
‘To get rid of dinner guests’—cinnamon-scented paan. You have spent the evening in the company of your beloved surrounded by other people—tantalizingly close and yet so far. You have exchanged glances, short conversations, perhaps a quick touch in passing till finally all you can think of is your bodies entangled together in the heat of passion. When you reach this point you offer your guests paan heavily scented with cinnamon. Your guests will get the hint and leave!
‘Let’s end foreplay and begin sex’—when every erotic nerve in her body is tingling, when her breath is short and her love juices are flowing, when she feels she is aroused and desperately needs to feel her lover inside her, she offers him a paan filled with a combination of valerian, jackfruit, camphor, cardamom and cloves, stuck together with ginger paste.
‘I am a below average lover and I need help’—yes, there was even a paan for inept lovers, for men who didn’t have the ability to satisfy a woman properly, for whatever reason. A paan made with quince was offered to the beloved. Quince is a highly aromatic fruit, a cross between a pear and a guava and with a reputation for being a love potion. It was said that this could bring a woman to orgasm very quickly no matter how rapacious she was, thereby saving the lover the embarrassment of trying to bring her to arousal through means that he was obviously not very capable of. She would leave fully satisfied and his reputation would stay intact.
In ancient Greece quince was offered at the altar of Aphrodite. In ancient Rome there was a law that made it necessary for all newly married couples to eat quince before consummating their marriage in order to avoid disappointment and the potential breakup of the relationship. And in ancient India it was used to save the reputations of men who lacked the ability to satisfy a woman properly by feeding it to the women—the paan would work its magic where the man couldn’t. It was especially given to women who had overly large vulvas.